Explore New Zealand with a camper van

Theres no better way to explore than by camper van  and theres no better place to do it than in New Zealand. William Gray and family hit the highway

Quick, grab it!” Even as I uttered the desperate plea to my wife, the hose seemed to spring to life. Writhing around her ankles like a malignant black cobra, it threatened to spew effluent everywhere except the drain, where I’d inserted it moments earlier. “You grab it!” Sally fired back as she retreated from a gallant attempt to retrieve the unruly hose that was about to relieve our motorhome of three days’ worth of sewage. “Phwoar! What’s that whiff?” chorused our four-year-old twins, Joe and Ellie, as they peered out of the shiny white behemoth.

A few more days into our self-drive tour of New Zealand’s South Island, we mastered the not-so-subtle art of emptying the waste tanks on our motorhome. In fact, we developed such a fondness for the lolloping great beast — which handled like an overloaded supermarket trolley — that we returned home contemplating buying one of our own.